Prior
by Segway
Summary: Takes place before the first movie. It was an average scouting mission, but it seemed as if even the weather was out to get them.
1. Chapter 1

Prior

***

In a heavy downpour, amidst of the murky night, there were shiny black streams that disappeared into the pine trees and muddy unpaved roads or some of the _delightful _gravel covered ones.

There was nothing in the world quite like rolling over tiny rocks and flinging them into your own undercarriage, except for being turned over and shot with a machine gun on a low setting.

"I _hate_ gravel." Bonecrusher's voice drifted through the silence.

They had been on the road for three days, them being Bonecrusher, Brawl, Frenzy and Barricade. It was a routine scouting mission on an alien planet. Meanwhile Starscream was elsewhere, they didn't know where he was or what he was doing and Blackout was helping him with it.

"H-h-hungry." Frenzy complained, breaking the silence.

The statement went completely ignored. Sitting in Barricades front passenger seat, Frenzy fidgeted around, eventually repeating his question.

"H-h-hungry, Barri-Barri!"

"Just where am I supposed to get Energon? We're in the middle of some redneck backwoods in Primus-knows-where!"

"Uhh.. We're in Oregon."

"Shut up, Brawl."

"S-still h-hungry."

"You shut up, too."

"I _hate_ rain."

Driving in silence, they only sounds they heard was the hard thrum of the rain hitting the ground and the soft thump of the gravel ricocheting off their, as Bonecrusher said, 'tender bits'.

Barricade slowed down after a clap of thunder lit the sky, while Brawl and Bonecrusher immediately transformed. They stood there in root mode pointing their guns at the sky like idiots. Barricade decided to enlighten them to this fact.

"Do we have to go through this every time we encounter _the weather_?" He asked. "You two slag head's thought the rain was an Autobot sabotage."

"It coulda been…" Brawl mumbled.

"Fragging _weather_." Bonecrusher said. "Sounding like a gun shot, it's lucky I didn't shoot it!"

"I'm sure the weather is grateful for that."

"H-h-hungry."

Transforming, he dumped the Cassetticon out on the ground.

"Frenzy. Unless you want to nibble on a pine tree, we've got nothing to eat."

Anther clap of thunder and a sharp scream interrupted Frenzy's reply.

Whirling around, Barricade spotted Bonecrusher stagger back into a pine tree, smoke pouring out of his joints. Brawl stood to the side, staring dumbly at the larger mech.

"Well…" Barricade sighed. "This just got complicated. Brawl, do you know anything about first aid?"

The dumb look he received was answer enough.

"Frenzy?"

"I kn-know how t-to realign a c-circuit."

"What does that do?"

"I d-dunno."

"Dammit!" Barricade cursed and walked over to the larger mech, who was unconscious. He poked him with a stick.

"Really? Neither of you know anything?"

"Um.. CPR?"

"Brawl, that's human first aid."

"But it looks easy."

"I don't think it's going to work here. I'm calling Starscream."

***

"What is it?!" Starscream screeched into his Comm. "Don't you know I'm busy?"

"_Busy doing what? And we have a problem down here."_

"Hmmp! I've got problems of my own."

"_Bonecrusher was electrocuted."_

Starscream was silent for a moment before yelling into his Comm. link.

"How in the **Fragging pit **did he do that in the middle of a **Fragging forest**?!"

"_Uh… The sky.. Kinda did it."_

"Barricade. Did you even _try_ to come up with a good excuse?"

"_I'm not lying! The sky got all puffy and dark, then it started shooting electricity all over. This planet is messed up. And Bonecrusher needs medical attention."_

"Do I look like Hook? No, I don't. Call someone else."

"_What? Who? Bonecrusher was the only medic we brought with us you idiot!"_

Starscream bristled at the insult and snapped the Comm. link shut.

"Hmmp!"

***

"He hung up on me." Barricade stared dumbly at his Comm.

Unsure of what to do now, he stared up at the clearing sky. At least he didn't have to worry about someone else getting electrocuted. This Planet had one heck of a defense system.

"W-what about the i-i-internet?"

"What about it?" He asked, turning to Frenzy.

"R-repair instru-structions, maybe?"

"Worth a shot I guess…"

Transforming, he opened his passenger door for the Cassetticon. Barricade could link to the internet through internal means, but it left his CPU open to attacks by human virus's and spam. Barricade didn't want his epitaph to read: Here lies Barricade, he died because of a pop up window mid-battle.

Trotting over, Frenzy hopped in and opened the laptop.

"W-what do I s-search for?"

"Uh… Try "do it yourself repairs' and 'construction equipment'."

Several hundred thousand searches popped up on the screen.

"Uh.. W-which?"

"Just… Pick one. I'm not entirely sure of what we're looking for."

Scanning several pages, Frenzy clicked on one entitled 'how to repair the engine'.

They read the article twice.

"Does he even _have_ those parts?" asked Barricade finally.

"I-i-i don't e-even know w-what it's t-talking about!"

Scrolling down, Frenzy game across a Youtube link.

_Still confused or in need of clarification? Click the link below for a free video demonstration!_

Frenzy clicked the link. The new page loaded in .000000002 seconds, and it showed a small box in the upper corner of the page with a 'play' button.

"W-why do we h-have a screen i-inside a s-screen?"

"Humans are idiots. And nothing on this planet seems to have a lot of logic."

Clicking 'play', the two sat back to watch the demonstration.

What they saw nearly sent their CPU's crashing.

While it was average for a human to see maintenance done to vehicles, such as opening the hood or empting a oil plate, it translated into cybertronian as XXX porn and was borderline necrophilia.

Frenzy snapped the laptop closed and the two were silent.

"If his self repair systems can't handle it, he's a dead mech."

***

Starscream activated his Comm. link. After contacting Cybertron, he had gotten a single reinforcement medic to be shipped out to earth. He was a tiny mech called Doctor. Uncreative, but to the point. He was not meant for battle nor to be a field medic, but he could be useful for when his idiotic soldiers decided to hurt themselves.

_Barricade,_ Starscream thought, _should kiss the ground I walk on for being such a benevolent and caring leader. _

***

Barricade hesitantly answered his Comm.

"Yes?"

"_Ah, Barricade! I have the most generous news for you. A new medic will be arriving shortly."_

"Thank Primus!"

"_You really should be thanking __**me.**__"_

"For what? You're the 'leader', you should have thought to bring an extra Medic in the first place."

"_Hmmph!" click._

"He just hung up on me again."

"M-most 'cons w-would pay money t-to be able to d-do that."

***

Doctor arrived like a tiny basketball sized comet, narrowly missing Blackout who stood at the rendezvous to collect him.

Standing up in his protoform and clicking irritably to himself, he scoured the junkyard for an alt-mode.

He chose a coffee machine.

Blackout transformed, deciding not to ask.

"C'mon, your first patient is waiting for you.

***

Brawl was glad to hear the familiar sound of rotors approaching. After a uncomfortable silence between Barricade and Frenzy, he was looking forward to something breaking the tension.

Blackout landed on the gravel road, slicing a few treetops while doing so. Doctor leapt out, immediately pinpointing the injured mech.

"What is that?" Barricade pointed to the tiny mech, hardly believing this was their 'replacement medic'.

"He's Doctor." Was all Blackout said, taking to the skies in a hurry.

"Huh." Barricade watched him go. "That's odd, he usually sticks around forever."

Barricade pulled up Doctor's file.

_Doctor_

_Grade A-9 medic_

_Root mode: Minicon_

_Class: Experimental Mech_

_Creators: Hook (constructicon Grade 10) Soundwave (Communicon Grade 10)_

_Form basis: Decepticon Frenzy_

_CPU basis: Autobot Ratchet_

_Faction: Decepticon_

"Frag." Just what he needed, another Frenzy with the mind of the evil Autobot medic. Soundwave was cruel, and apparently had a really sadistic sense of humor.

Closing the file, he watched the minicon work on Bonecrusher. It amazed him that the tiny Con could actually do what he was designed to do, being that he was so tiny. But the minicon managed to weave in and out of Bonecrusher's armor, fixing who-knows-what and chattering to himself.

Suddenly, the small mech scampered over to the Mustang.

"Patient Bonecrusher is fully operational, he shall wake from stasis lock in 13 minutes 30.4 seconds."

"That's goo-" Thwang.

Barricade stared at Doctor, too shocked to do anything.

"Did you just throw a _wrench _at me?!"

"You!" Doctor pointed at him. "Should have known better! Any search, even a quick one, on lightning could have prevented this."

"Me?! I'm not even the leader of this scout party!"

This time, Barricade ducked.

"I l-like him a-already."

"Shut up, Frenzy!"

***

(A/N: Does anyone know the name of the tiny mech that did brain surgery on Sam in ROTF? I'm calling him 'Doctor' but if he has a name please tell me.)


	2. Chapter 2

Take out Training

EDIT: Originally, this was a sequel, but recently I decided to add it as a chapter with the possibility of continueing it, depending on how many people still remember this exists.

Between where they were and where they were now couldn't be more different. That had traded the cold for heat, the mud for sand and the pine tree's for small shrubby things that rolled around.

They were now somewhere in Arizona.

With their Oregon scouting mission complete, they were driving to their new base of operations. They had yet to see the base, as it had been Starscream who found it, but the ground bound Decepticon's hated it already. To them, it seemed as if every grain of sand had a mission to seek out a joint and stick there.

However, Starscream flat out refused to set up a base in Oregon, on the grounds that it was environmentally unsafe. 'And until one of you can build an anti-electrical storm machine to stop the sky from shooting us, Oregon is temporarily off-limits.' Starscream's words.

Barricade was only half sure Starscream wouldn't put them in a time-out next.

They drove across the desert on a single paved road. Said road looked out of place on the long stretch of sand and Tumbleweeds. It seemed almost pointless, out here in the middle of nowhere, with nothing in sight at either end.

Barricade lead the way in Alt-mode with Scalpel sitting on his roof. The small doctor had bluntly refused to ride inside and no one could get him to change his mind, they only conceded when it proved pointless to hide him on a desolate road anyway. Bonecrusher and Brawl trailed behind, with Brawl asking a stupid question here and there and Bonecrusher trying to ignore him. He hated it when people ask questions.

"What's a 'toaster'?" Brawl asked, as they passed a billboard offering 20% off your next purchase if you bought a 299.99$ toaster.

"A blatant rip-off."

Meanwhile, Scalpel was researching humans with the laptop.

"Interesting." The small Con said as 'Never gonna give you up!' suddenly blared through the speaker. "I clicked on a video for human biology and instead got a video of a man dancing around with a microphone."

"R-r-rick Roll'd!" Frenzy shouted out of the open front seat window.

"What?"

"N-never mind."

Typing 'Rick rolled' into a search bar, Scalpel's search turned up an almost endless list of video's, all of the _same man singing._

"I fail to see the point of this-" A loud crunch interrupted him mid-sentence. He scrambled over to the trunk, knocking the laptop sideways onto the roof and scanned the road behind them. "What was that? What did you hit?"

"Calm down, it was a plastic cup. The humans throw them out everywhere." Barricade said.

"So why did you run over it?" The small robot crossed his arms and tapped one spider-like leg, glaring down on the Mustang.

" 'Cause it was there? It's not sentient! You can't look at me like that!"

"How do you know it wasn't living?"

"Because it was a cup… They don't 'live'. This isn't Cybertron, everything you touch isn't always someone."

"Go back and get it."

"What? No! Wait, why?"

"I wish to… Study it." Scalpel clacked his arms together and giggled disturbingly.

"No. I'm not going back all that way just for some plastic cup, you can pick up one later."

"Hmmph."

"H-hey! L-look!" Frenzy pointed to a billboard sign as they passed it and read: "'McBell's! the t-tastiest food this side of this god f-forsaken hell h-hole. 30 m-miles.' Those human n-nutrition e-establishments always have lots of c-cups!"

"I can't tell, did they plagiarize Taco Bell or McDonalds?" Barricade asked.

"W-we'll know w-when we g-get there."

"McBellz? Taco Bell? McDonaldz?" Scalpel repeated the unfamiliar words in a thick accent. "What language are you speaking?"

"It's English. It's the language most humans in this area use. You haven't learned it yet?"

"I have just recently arrived, I've had no time to… Study this." He clacked his tiny hands together again, only slightly less creepy then the last time he did it.

"Well you better- Hey wait a minute! You were reading it just fine off the laptop!"

"Reading is not the same as speaking. Besides, I had Frenzy translate most of it into Cybertronian."

Barricade dropped the conversation and rolled down his back seat window.

"Get in."

"What? Never!"

"I can't pull into a restaurant with you on my roof, Human's don't take that well!"

"Humph." He was clearly not happy, but he scampered inside the Mustang anyway, just as McBell's came into view.

There were two bright flickers of light in the front seat as two holograms popped up. In the driver seat was a generic looking highway cop with sunglasses, next to him was a young female cop.

The Female cop gave Scalpel a remarkably evil grin. "T-t-transform."

Scalpel folded down into a Coffee Machine just as they parked. Frenzy excited Barricade still disguised as a female human and opened the backdoor to retrieve him.

"_What are we doing?"_ Scalpel commed Frenzy.

"We c-can't go inside without d-disguises." Frenzy answered out loud, earning a few looks from the humans standing nearby. "L-let me do the t-talking."

Frenzy walked in and went straight to the counter. He tried to make the hologram smile, but it looked more like a wolf baring it's teeth. Despite having been on the planet longer then the doctor, Frenzy still did not have all the information required to blend in with humans, as a result, the eyes on the hologram followed the same high speed as his optics. Coupled with the smile and random coffee machine, it gave him an insane appearance.

"May I help you… Ma'am?" The girl at the counter looked terrified.

"Y-yes. I w-would like the happy W-wappy McMeal and a small c-coke."

It was probably the fastest service anyone had ever received from the small out-of-the-way restaurant. It had taken less then a minute for the service girl to place a Happy Wappy McMeal and a small coke on the counter.

"That'll be 8.95$."

"8.95 of w-what?"

"Uh.. Oh.." The girl stared at them wide-eyed. "Oh, I'm sorry, that was for my other… customer. Please just take this and go."

Grabbing the bag and the drink, Frenzy placed them on top of Scalpel. He gave the service girl another terrifying smile, before exiting the restaurant.

After a tense moment of silence, one of the customers finally spoke.

"What was the coffee machine for?"

Brawl wasn't sure how to take this. As soon as Frenzy and Scalpel returned, Scalpel had refused to ride with Barricade and had latched himself on to Brawl.

Brawl wouldn't have minded so much if the tiny mech didn't creep him out. Something about the large bug eyes, antennae and spider legs made Brawl want to squish him. Just as he as about to consider doing so, while the little buggy mech was distracted with the Happy Wappy McMeal, they had finally reached their destination.

In front of them were two large buildings, built like someone had sawn a giant barrel in half and split the two pieces apart, and a square silver shack only big enough for a human.

"Home sweet Pit." Growled Bonecrusher.

Transforming, the Decepticons entered their new base. Bonecrusher, the tallest of the group, felt a few of the jagged metal pieces of his helmet just skim the roof.

It was completely bare and covered in a fine layer of dust with no windows and no backdoor. Barricade considered the possibility of blasting out their own backdoor in case they ever needed one.

Frenzy, seeing nothing of interest, decided to check out the silver shack.

"B-back in a m-minute!"

"Seriously, this is the place Starscream chose? … This is why Megatron used to kick him all the time, isn't it."

"Hey! Barri-barri!" Frenzy trotted up to the group, having finished his exploration of the shack.

"What Frenzy?"

"Somewhere o-out there, there is a human stupider then the r-rest! I went into that tiny shack, a-and the only thing in there w-was a chair! And n-not only that, but the idiots d-decided to cut a big hole in the m-middle and fill it with water!"

Barricade stared at him for a second. "Why?"

Frezy just shrugged, trotting back outside to explore the area some more.

"Um." Brawl fidgeted with his claws. "Are we recharging here?"

"Nope. We just drove several hundred miles to turn around and go right back!" Bonecrusher said. "I hate you."

"Uh… okay."

Barricade chose to ignore the two of them, seated himself onto the floor of the hanger for recharge. Pathetic as it was, it had been unnerving to wander around without a base of operations. Even if he was half hoping the Autobots would find them and blow it to smithereens just so they could find something else.

Barricade's optics flickered off into recharge, the last image they captured was of Scalpel running around the base wearing the plastic cup as a hat.


End file.
